Replacing a surprisingly reliable & productive Canon 40D body, this new 5D Mark III will now be used primarily by my assistants at events/weddings. Today I’ll just recap an hour’s worth of objective first impressions alongside today’s short gallery.

Outside of the huge AF-point-selection upgrade & greatly improved LCD screen, the most noticeable difference I found in using the 5D Mark III is the improved shutter lag (59ms) compared to the 5D Mark II. Once slow & cumbersome, the quick AF of the Canon Mark III is now the 5-series’ main selling point. (Below: taken with an excellent EF 135mm f/2L, this close-range test photo of the LensAlign target is absolutely DEAD-on – requiring 0 micro-focus adjustments in-camera)

Canon EOS 5D Mark III – Viewfinder Concerns

– black AF points hard to see in low-light without viewfinder illumination
– viewfinder illumination flashes red ring of light through lens (towards subject)
– lack of pre-flash for AI focus mode, hard to see tracking point
– there was nothing wrong with the previous flagship viewfinder, why the regression?

Other smaller disappointments include the crippling exclusion of spot-metering, the annoyingly-slow SD card slot & the lack of improvement in dynamic range at low/base-ISO ranges (for studio & wildlife usage most notably).

Alas, the positives must’ve far outweighed the negatives for me to pull the trigger instantly when the favourable deal presented itself. In the 5D Mark III’s case, the positives most definitely speak for themselves.

All in all, after just a short afternoon session, it seems that Canon’s long-awaited 5D Mark III is superior to Canon’s previous full-frame champion, the very capable 1Ds Mark III overall. Better technology, refined capability – in a smaller package. How modern.

Note: I still plan to shoot primarily with my 1Ds Mark III + 1D Mark IV setup at events/weddings – I’ll keep you posted if I ever learn to live with the 5D Mark III’s design flaws.